


full sun; chance of a storm

by renaissance



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Friendship, Gen, Reunions, Summer
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-12
Updated: 2016-06-12
Packaged: 2018-07-14 14:59:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,834
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7176563
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/renaissance/pseuds/renaissance
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p></p><blockquote>
  <p>They follow these lives, once so closely intertwined with their own, like they would read a weather report—today’s is full sun, with a chance of late afternoon thunderstorms.</p>
</blockquote>
            </blockquote>





	full sun; chance of a storm

**Author's Note:**

> A while ago, [Our Summer](https://twitter.com/oz_hqfanbook/status/741921163249487873) was a small idea without so much as a title, for Australian creators to come together and make a fanbook. With the theme of "summer," we set off working on submissions, and now, it's been released. I'm very grateful for the opportunity to be a part of this. I also edited all the fics included, which was a great privilege. Thank you to Kukkii, Emelia, and San for their amazing work! Please give the fanbook a download and check out all the writing and art included. And keep an eye out for some of the others on ao3!

The sun-weathered purple of irises and hydrangeas line the path to the park, evenly-planted beacons to the spreading green ahead. The first lavender is beginning to bloom, too, and it makes Kiyoko’s heart swell a little with something poetic—an urge she suppresses. If she were asked, the only beautiful thing about the day is the picnic basket full of food that Daichi is hauling up ahead of her. There’s no poetry in the blinding sunlight or the swelter of the heavy air, nothing in the sparkling grass or the exuberant birds.

Of course, Daichi makes Asahi carry the food. With his first step off the bus, Daichi entrusts his picnic basket into Asahi’s unready hands. Asahi stumbles backwards with the heft of it, cradling it in his arms like the world might end if he dropped it. Beside him, Kiyoko has to refrain from laughing. Suga has no such qualms about decorum—he cackles and slaps Asahi on the back.

“It’s good to see you all,” Daichi breathes. There’s a flush to his face. It’s probably just the heat.

What he _doesn’t_ say is, “After so long.” But Kiyoko thinks it. Two years, give or take a month—that’s how long it’s been since they last met up. They’re new people, compared to who they were two years ago. Kiyoko has been promoted to manager. She doesn’t tell them, yet.

“Seeing you step out of a coach makes me all nostalgic,” Suga says. “It’s like being back at Sendai Gym.”

The thrill of competition, though, is nowhere to be found on a day like today. Instead, it’s the direct heat, the kind that quashes all sorts of things, least of all spirits.

“I don’t miss that,” Asahi says decisively, in the sort of tone that indicates he _does_ , really, miss it.

Kiyoko spins her parasol idly, catching the sunlight at a different angle as they make for the park. There are a few high-canopied wisterias, not in bloom but no less majestic for it, and Suga decides on a spot with the most shade. He probably needs the parasol more than Kiyoko does. She tries to walk so that he’s in her shade, even a little bit. It’s the least she can do.

They set out their picnic blanket under the largest wisteria, and Asahi spreads the food across the middle. He crosses his legs awkwardly, like his body is built wrong for the action. Kiyoko folds up her parasol and her knees beneath her, settling onto the blanket.

Then, they’re quiet.

It’s to be expected that no-one knows what to say to each other after this long. The silence is not uncomfortable. After all, there’s the distant chirping of crickets, drawing closer to them and then pulling away like waves crashing against a perfect beach, again and again. There are children in the park, running and screaming, and their parents chatting in constant tones, only turning their phrases with a shout when a youthful action passes for a transgression.

The silence stretches on like still-hot, unfinished rock candy. Kiyoko wants to tug on its ends, pull it apart, bring back the ease that the four of them used to have—or, the three volleyball players, and her. As she contemplates it, twisting her fingers in the hem of her dress, Daichi reaches forward and grabs a snack.

“So what’s everyone been up to?” he asks around a mouthful of food.

Suga rolls his eyes. “The usual. Still studying.”

“Yikes,” Daichi says. “Med school sure goes on for a long time.”

“Would you trust a doctor who had only studied for three years?”

Daichi hums. “I suppose not. But I probably wouldn’t trust you with my health anyway.”

With a loud laugh, Suga cuts through some of the tension. Even on court, Suga had a way of doing that. He calmed everyone’s nerves just by being in the room. A fixer—a doctor.

“Well, I’ve been busy too,” Asahi says. “I’m coaching full-time now. I still do afternoons and mornings at my old middle school, but now I’m going to different primary schools during the day. It’s a little exhausting.”

His words are accompanied by a self-conscious smile, and he rubs the back of his head. Exactly as Kiyoko remembers him.

“Is that all?” Daichi says, teasing. “Sounds like nothing at all.”

Asahi’s face flashes dark for a second and he folds in on himself, but a moment later he seems to twig that it’s a joke. “Oh, ha ha,” he says. “It’s demanding, but I do love it.”

“Well, that’s good,” Suga says. “It’s important to do something you love.” He switches his expression to something mock-serious and adds, “Unlike _Sawamura-san_ here.”

“Hey!” Daichi protests. “Working in an office is a respectable job. And I still play volleyball on the weekends!”

“Boring,” Suga says. “All I’m hearing is, _I’m boring_.”

“Not so boring I study all the damn time,” Daichi shoots back. “What was it you said when I last asked if you were free for a drinks evening? _Sorry, I can’t, I’ve got an exam—_ ”

Suga cuts him off, leaning across the spread of food to shove a hand across Daichi’s mouth. He starts singing, loud and ebullient, but off-key. It does the trick, though. It shuts Daichi up. “Alright, alright,” he says. “Anything to get you to stop.”

Abruptly, Suga turns to Kiyoko. “And what are you doing these days?”

She purses her lips. She doesn’t like talking about herself, and with good reason. She’s not a natural speaker—somehow, her words are never quite what she wants to convey—and on top of that, she’s not as interesting as the other three. Like Asahi, her marks hadn’t been good enough for a university degree. Unlike Asahi, she didn’t get a scholarship to a sports university. No, for Kiyoko it was her mother’s bookstore, and the café on weekends. Then, it was a bookstore in the city; a bookstore with a café.

“I’m still just working,” she says. She doesn’t tell them that she's been promoted to manager, and that her promotion gave her enough of an income to rent a flat in Sendai instead of commuting from her parents’ home every day. She doesn’t tell them that the reason she didn’t move out earlier is because she wasn’t sure she’d cope with the constant presence of a housemate.

“Like Daichi,” Suga says. He can read her like a book, probably, and he says it with a sense of finality, like that’s the end of the discussion.

And it is, because Daichi interrupts to point out that his job as an insurance broker is _very_ important, Suga, and where would the world be without people like him? Uninsured, probably, but Kiyoko doesn’t say anything.

They ask after their old classmates, and the underclassmen too, if anyone's been keeping up with them. None of them have, except superficially. They see Kageyama and Hinata’s names in volleyball magazines, Ennoshita’s on film blogs. They follow these lives, once so closely intertwined with their own, like they would read a weather report—today’s is full sun, with a chance of late afternoon thunderstorms. Nishinoya is playing for Japan, now. It’s said just as casually.

Apart from the weather, they talk about other things—the school, their homes, their families. Their friends. It unsettles Kiyoko that they all have new circles of friends, although she’s not sure why it should. _She’s_ the oddity, with no-one to meet her after work and take her out for dinner, no-one to greet her when she gets home.

Not for the first time, she regrets not sharing more of her life with other people. But, she’s always been an intrinsically private person. She’s never wanted to share, never been _able_ to do it so casually as the others did. She would let them have their new lives, and let them find their way back into hers when they could.

“We should do this more often.” It’s Asahi who suggests it, busy Asahi, barely even free on weekends because the more enthusiastic students at his middle school want his time to hone their fledgling skills.

The others agree. “I probably study too hard,” Suga admits. “It would be good for me to come back home more often, maybe see my parents while I’m at it.”

“I don’t want to come off like I’m married to my job,” Daichi says, which is only funny because he’s the one who’s grown up the fastest, an engagement ring around his finger. No-one laughs, though, except Kiyoko.

“What about you?” Suga asks, turning to her. He was always first to include her, being the second-most shy—he knew what to look for.

“It depends on the timing,” she says. “But I should be able to.”

Asahi's face breaks into a broad grin. “I’m glad,” he says. “It wouldn’t feel right without you.”

 _I don’t feel right without all of you,_ Kiyoko wants to say. She misses them terribly—it’s the secret she takes with her when she leaves her flat in the morning, letting it escape before she can close the door and follow her to work. It’s her loneliness that, even on the brightest day of summer, haunts her like a dusk shadow.

And now, like a blossom at the beginning of spring, like the irises that line the path to the park, the petals are beginning to unfurl. She sheds her isolation and opens herself up to the world ahead.

“I’ve missed you all,” she says, laughing with the _relief_ of it all, “so much.”

Her laughter rolls into a clap of thunder that passes over the sky. Under the encompassing shade of the wisteria, she hadn’t noticed the clouds crossing the sky, and as the first drops fall they’re shielded.

“We should get back,” Daichi says, looking solicitously at his picnic basket and blanket.

“I live nearby,” Asahi says. “We can weather the storm at mine.”

“I might miss my train,” Suga says.

Daichi snorts. “I forgot you were the one married to your job.”

“Studies,” Suga corrects him.

And Kiyoko, overcome with emotion, keeps laughing. “I’ve missed this,” she says. She doesn’t need to make it picture-perfect, doesn’t need to tell them everything about her life just yet. She just needs a beginning.

The wind changes its course, blowing lashes of rain through the curtain fronds of the wisteria tree. In late summer, they can expect full sun, with a chance of late afternoon thunderstorms. She feels as bright as the day had been earlier, as filled with warmth as she’d been when she set out of the house. Her dress is soaked as they run for cover, even though she’s the only one with an umbrella. Together, they race for the bus shelter, falling over each other and laughing with the sort of breathless exhilaration that goes hand-in-hand with a reunion, and a rainstorm, a deluge of some indescribable emotion.

Starting their friendship anew—the first summer of many.

**Author's Note:**

> Please leave a comment!


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